


Cracks like molten gold

by ElsaFH (Elsa0806)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hinata Shouyou is Whipped, Introspection, Kintsugi, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, art metaphors, unbeta'd we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25139461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsa0806/pseuds/ElsaFH
Summary: Kintsugi: 金継ぎ (きんつぎ). The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with precious metals such as gold, silver or platinum.Miya Atsumu is not perfect and Hinata Shouyou is thankful for that.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 16
Kudos: 114





	Cracks like molten gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitcassiachan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitcassiachan/gifts).



> Yes, hello, tis I, Eli, coming at you with a new AtsuHina fanfic. I've always wanted to write something about Kintsugi because the idea seems so beautiful to me, but I'd never found a pairing that strikes me the right way to do so. Until well... AtsuHina happened. As you already know, I'm way too deep into this ship. I do not want to get out. 
> 
> This fic is a gift to Kit because it's her birthday. Happy birthday, love! I hope you enjoy it <3 

Sometimes, when Shouyou looks at Atsumu, he can’t help but think about kintsugi.

Atsumu isn’t perfect. He’s as human as Shouyou himself and therefore, he’s full of imperfections. Shouyou has never been a fan of perfection if he’s to be true to himself; perfection sounds boring. It leaves no room for improvement. If something is perfect from the moment it’s created, that something lacks a soul. People, he’s discovered throughout his twenty-two years of life, are a cluster of imperfections and mistakes and _that’s_ what makes them loveable.

He loves Atsumu’s imperfections as much as he loves volleyball and, dare he say, they’re probably the reason as to why he fell so hard for this imperfect man sleeping atop of him.

Atsumu, this boy he came to know when he was fifteen years old and was filled with the adrenaline of a match that sucked the soul out of him, has built a personality on top of them. He used every single one of his faults as the foundations of the man that makes Shouyou’s heart beat furiously. Atsumu used his faults and imperfections as steady points to place his feet while climbing this steep mountain that is life.

And so, he’s become this beautiful man he knows and loves. His imperfections are sometimes too much for Shouyou to handle and those are the times when he has to take a step back in fear his temper might bring out the worst of him. But when they’re not arguing and Shouyou has the chance to look at him in the eyes and list every fault underneath the perfect styled hair, the killer smile, and the sly glimmer to his irises whenever he knows he’s discovered one of Shouyou’s weaknesses, he thinks of molten gold and pottery delicately reattached.

If Shouyou could outline every single one of Atsumu’s imperfections like scars on his skin, filling them with molten gold, Atsumu would be a statue. A tribute to humanity. One hundred and eighty seven centimetres of a monument erected as an ode to all of that that makes a person loveable.

Shouyou’s hands brush against the soft hair on top of his head, sliding his fingers in between the strands as they tickle on the sensitive creases underneath the articulations. Atsumu sleeps safe and sound with his cheek pressed against Shouyou’s chest, his ear glued to the spot that covers his heart. He’s told Shouyou over and over again that his heartbeat lulls him to sleep. Shouyou could’ve complained about the weight. He does not do this.

This monument to humanity, which weights exactly eighty point seven kilograms, with his faults and mistakes like scars filled with gold turning his skin into a work of art, is everything but perfect and Shouyou loves him without hesitation.

He knows imperfections hurt. He’s experimented that enough times in his life to have interiorized this knowledge a long time ago. To love someone with their faults and virtues is something you learn while walking the sinuous path of life. It’s not easy and sometimes it doesn’t lead you anywhere, but sometimes, some sacred, universe-like arranged to fall on the hollow of the palm of your hands time, to love someone as they are and with everything packed in the heavy backpack of their personality, is worth every tear. Pain is sometimes a high price to pay for something, but Shouyou always feels like loving Atsumu is way cheaper than it should be.

Hinata Shouyou has the privilege of loving this tribute to humanity and imperfections that is Miya Atsumu. To love every single one of his metaphorical scars, soft and warm and very humane against his lips. To cherish every virtue that surrounds each mistake and fault like the sky outlines existence itself. If his imperfections are scars, the smooth skin around them is the canvas in which they’re drawn. Shouyou has made his life mission to kiss and worship every patch of skin along with every scar and every single one of the things Atsumu hides underneath his killer smile and the sly glimmer to his eyes.

Shouyou is not the one who glued Atsumu back together. That’s Atsumu’s making. He reconstructed himself as every human has throughout their life, but he managed to break down and reshape himself into this beautiful monument pressing Shouyou down against the mattress. He’s never felt ashamed of his imperfections, contrary to most humans out there. Shouyou is ashamed of his imperfections, too, and that’s where Atsumu and he are so different.

Whereas Shouyou tries to hide his imperfections, Atsumu wears them like a banner. They’re the first thing you bump into when you know him and he’s never swallowed an opinion that might rub others in a bad way. He’s straight forward, so much that some people believe he’s a jerk. Yes. Miya Atsumu is a jerk. That’s one of his faults. That’s, sometimes, the only fault people look at or think of whenever Atsumu is mentioned. But Shouyou knows better. Shouyou knows Atsumu filled that fault like a crack on a ceramic pot with a kindness he’s never seen before.

Miya Atsumu filled the crack of his jerkiness with the molten gold of kindness. He gives his spikers a chance to redeem themselves. He might say he’s pressuring them into being on top shape, but Shouyou always knows better. He’s just kind. If the rest of the world is ashamed of their imperfections, Atsumu is ashamed of his virtues.

His way of living is so raw, so exposed in this enclosed way of his, that Shouyou sometimes is left breathless due to how easy it is for him to love all of those imperfections. Atsumu always says that he doesn’t need memories; memories are the past. He doesn’t look back. But Shouyou knows that if he did, he could see the process in which he filled every scar-like cracks on a ceramic pot with the molten gold of every virtue he’s polished in his twenty-three years of life.

Atsumu stirs in his sleep. Shouyou smiles. This precious, one of a kind monument to humanity made out of marble and gold and imperfections comes back to the world of the awake with a soft whine that makes Shouyou’s heart skip a beat. If his cracks and scars were real and not just metaphors Shouyou has come up with in this weird state between being asleep and awake, sunlight would turn him into a prism. He belongs to a museum, right in between Michelangelo’s David and Rodin’s Thinker. He deserves the place of honour among all of the masterpieces humanity has ever created.

Atsumu might very well be part of a museum already, however. He lives in every single one of Shouyou’s favourite memories and he’s somehow made his way into those that weren’t created alongside him. Shouyou wants to hang the picture of his that he has in his brain in his personal hall of fame.

“Mornin’,” Atsumu drawls on. His voice is thick and heavy with slumber, ringing in Shouyou’s ears like music. Ah, he loves this imperfect man so much he doesn’t even know what to do with himself.

“Morning, Atsumu,” Shouyou greets, smiling. His own slumber subdues slowly while his brain repeats this first word of the day on loop. Atsumu’s voice changes along the day and Shouyou has memorized every high and down of it until his ears are able to recognize the fluctuations of his voice like a musician recognizes the notes of their instrument. “How’d you sleep?”

Atsumu replaces his cheek with his chin against Shouyou’s chest to look at him with puffy, tired eyes.

“Like a baby,” he says before yawning.

“ _Atsumu_ ,” Shouyou complains, giggling. “Morning breath!”

Atsumu chuckles, going back to his previous position. His arms snake underneath Shouyou’s back, his chest pressing a bit harder against Shouyou’s stomach while he cuddles a bit closer.

“’m goin’ back t’sleep,” he murmurs. The hot, damp air of his words tickles against Shouyou’s naked upper half and he does his best to not squirm and giggle when goosebumps spread across his skin like tiny fireworks exploding through his nerve ends. “Sleep, Shouyou.”

“It’s late,” he sighs, running his fingers through Atsumu’s hair. He purrs when his fingertips draw tender circles on his scalp, rubbing his cheek against Shouyou’s chest like a cat marking its territory and possessions. Shouyou doesn’t mind. “We need to get out of bed.”

“It’s our free weekend,” is the reply he gives around a new yawn. Shouyou wants to argue and tell him that he needs to do his yoga routine— he’s already a few hours late to it. They need to have a healthy breakfast, but at this point, he should just stick up to a good old bowl of fruit and get to cook lunch. They also need to go for their daily run. “Lemme sleep.”

Shouyou’s retort dies on his tongue with the sweet flavour of giving in to the temptation. He puffs out a laugh, letting Atsumu come a little closer, letting him entangle his ankles with his own.

“Just a few more minutes,” he lies through his teeth, with his entire chest. Because he knows he’ll doze off too. He doesn’t mind.

“Yah, yah.”

Shouyou sighs. This monument to humanity, covered in cracks like scars filled with molten gold, with his smooth skin like marble, deserving of the place of honour amongst the most famous works of art humanity has ever created, likes to sleep in during their free weekends. Shouyou knows this. He does nothing to get him out of bed.

“Sleep well,” he murmurs. He thinks for a moment about placing a soft kiss to the top of his head but realizes it’d disturb him. Instead of a kiss, he lets his fingers disentangle from his hair and takes them to his back, drawing the edge of his shoulder blades with his sensitive fingertips, outlining disjoint circles across his skin.

Atsumu is a cluster of imperfections. Shouyou has decided to treat him the same way the artist of those distant times treated broken pottery; with the utmost respect and consideration, following his firm belief that imperfections make you human. Atsumu has filled his own cracks like scars with molten gold and thus, he deserves said respect and consideration.

Miya Atsumu is not perfect and Hinata Shouyou is thankful for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know, it was shorter than the fics I usually post. But I wanted to have Shouyou dying of love for Atsumu, and so this is pure self-indulgence. Is it me projecting my love for Atsumu onto Shouyou? Absolutely. Am I ever gonna stop? Never. Also, I didn't want it to be that long, either. A girl needs to write shorter pieces.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! And Kit, I hope you enjoyed this little piece I wrote for you <3
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Xhiiluh) and/or [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/Xhiiluh)! 


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